Midna: A Typical Faerie Tale
by serina-phantom
Summary: FULL SUMMARY INSIDE. Yugi's life is normal until the day he meets a Faerie Knight named Yami. Now Yugi learns that he's not really who he thinks he is, and that he just might be a part of the world of Faeries and darkness. YYY BR SJ MM
1. Prologue

**Title**: Midna: A Typical Faerie Tale

**Genre**: romance, drama, hurt/comfort

**Rating**: T+ for language, slight drug usage, and violence (_rating might go up_)

**Pairings**: YamiXYugi (_puzzleshipping_); BakuraXRyou (_tendershipping_); KaibaXJonouchi (_puppyshipping_); MarikXMalik (_bronzeshipping_)

**Summary**: 16-year-old Yugi Mouto lives with an alcoholic rock star mom, whose lifestyle lends itself to travel and minimal attachment. The only consistent thing in Yugi's childhood is the visitation by his faerie friends, and his ability to make strange things happen, inhuman things like making a decrepit merry-go-round horse come to life. He is a sarcastic, sometimes bitter, edgy young man with a hidden innocent side struggling to find his place in a world that offers little in return. Then one night, following a disastrous, rainy night with friends, he rescues a Faerie Knight named Yami on his way home. In this brief but pivotal moment, he tricks him into revealing his name, fully aware of the power this gives him, and then finds himself in the throes of a crush on someone he knows is not of this world. But Yugi's trouble truly begins when he discovers that he himself is not human, having been "glamoured" to hide his true, shimmering green, pixie self. He then becomes a pawn in a rival war between two distinct faeries...

Me: Okay, my sweet readers! This is a story we have both been planning for a little while! We wanted to get it, but we didn't have time, but here we are with the story!

Lucy: Anyway, this is a puzzleshipping story inspired by the two amazing tales, "_Tithe_" and "_Ironside_" written by Holly Black.

**DISCLAIMER**: We do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Tithe or Ironside. They belong to their respective creators.

Me: This is a story of love, friendship, darkness, horror, and more importantly, it shows the dark side of faeries, who people usually label as sweet and loving! We all know what their hidden side is like!

Lucy: Please enjoy!

_**Prologue**_

Yugi lit another cigarette and dropped the burning nicotine stick into his mother's beer bottle. He figured it would be the perfect test to see how drunk Era was tonight—see if she would swallow a whole cigarette whole without retching. A smile played with his lips. He loved it when his mom was drunk enough to drink whatever he decided to slip into her drink.

They were up on stage still, Era and Bill and the rest of Moonlit Blade. It had been a bad set and watching them break down the equipment, he could tell that they knew it. It didn't really matter, the sound system was scratchy and loud and everyone had kept drinking and smoking and a few even yelled, so he doubted the manager minded. Some people, drunk as they were, even got up and started dancing. Yugi had laughed all the while during that whole spectacle.

The bartender turned to him and offered him a drink on the house.

"Sorry, man. I don't drink," Yugi smirked, brushing back his ragged, three-toned hair and pocketing a couple of matchbooks when the bartender's back was turned.

Then his mother was next to him,taking a huge swallow of the beer before spitting it all over the floor, coughing up the wet cigarette Yugi had dropped in. He couldn't help the wicked series of cackles that flooded up his throat. Era looked at him in disbelief and then glared, wiping her mouth free of the taste of swallowed cigarette.

"Hilarious," she said, voice hoarse from singing. "Now go help load the car."

She was smoothing damp sweat-covered black hair back from her face. Her purple lipstick was rubbed off the inside of her lips but still clung to the edge of her mouth, smudged a bit. Yugi noticed that she looked extremely exhausted, so he decided to play the "good child" and go help load the car up.

Yugi slid off the counter and leapt onto the stage in one swift movement. Bill glared at him as he started picking up stuff randomly, so Yugi tried to grab what was only his mother's.

When his back was turned to Bill, Yugi couldn't help but grin evilly. He knew why Bill hated him—he was jealous of what Yugi could do. It took fat ol' Bill at least five minutes to climb onto the stage each night, whereas Yugi could leap up a ten-foot high stage in one simple leap. Once, in a fit of jealousy at Yugi's nimble movements, Bill had reached to grab his ankle when he jumped, as if to drag him back. Yugi had glared at him when he saw his hand move, and then Bill was on the ground, screaming that his hand was broken. Sure enough, his first three fingers were broken, due to the fact that he'd grabbed Yugi's shoe when he kicked, meaning that Yugi had kicked his fingers and broken them. No one blamed him for it, but Yugi had always know that there was something wrong with Bill's story, and with the logic to it all.

He hadn't touched Bill when he broke his fingers.

Bill turned to him when Yugi looked back. His eyes were glazed. "Hey kid, got any money on you?"

Not in the mood to argue or protect his stash, Yugi shrugged and slipped a ten out of his back pocket. He had more, and Bill probably knew it- he'd just come from his job at the Chinese restaurant. Delivering food might have paid crap, but he earned more than his mother and Bill did by playing in a band.

Bill took the money and flopped off the stage toward the bar, probably to get some beer to go.

Yugi picked up Era's stuff and started hauling it off through the crowd. People mostly got out of his way when they saw Yugi's abnormal amethyst eyes and his strange elfin face flash in their direction. He smiled. His friend Jonouchi had often told Yugi that at first glance, one could mistake him for an imp or an elf.

The cool autumn air outside the bar was a welcome relief, even stinking as it was of iron and exhaust pipes. To Yugi, the city always reeked of the scent of iron.

It took him only a few moments to load up the car. He went back inside, intent on getting back to the car before someone tried to break in. In this town, it was impossible to leave anything inside the car without expecting it to be stolen. The last time Era's car had been broken in to, it had been for a secondhand coat and a roll of paper towels. Yugi wasn't usually angered by that, but he had glared after the direction he felt the thief had gone, and sure enough, moments later, a man came running through the parking lot with the paper towels and the coat, chased by a mass of evil bees. To this day, Yugi still didn't know how he had known where the thief had gone, and he always felt like the bees had been his doing. But that was just crazy.

The girl checking IDs at the door took a long look at him this time but didn't say anything. It was late anyway, almost last call.

Era was still at the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking something stronger than beer. Bill was talking to a guy with short brown hair. The man looked out of place in the bar, too well dressed or something, but Bill had his arm slung over the man's shoulders. Yugi caught a flash of the man's eyes. Ice blue, reflecting in the dark bar. Yugi shivered.

But then again, Yugi saw strange things sometimes. He'd learned to ignore them.

"Car's loaded," he told Era.

Era nodded, hardly listening. "'Kay. Got a cigarette, honey?"

Groaning under his breath, Yugi fished out his mother's pack from his back pants pocket. "Fine, but this is the last one you're getting tonight, got me?" he snapped. Era nodded drunkenly. Yugi snatched one and handed it to his mother. Before she took it, he drew it back. "Ah! I want a verbal promise on this one, Mom."

Era groaned loudly. "Fine," she said. "I promise this is the last one. Now gimme it."

"Good girl." Yugi handed over the cigarette.

Era bent close, the scent of whiskey and beer and cigarettes lingering on her familiar as perfume to Yugi. "Thanks, baby," she said in that goofy way that was both sweet and embarrassing at the same time, touching her pinkie to the tip of Yugi's nose. Taking her lighter from him, she flicked it twice and then her cigarette came to life.

"Ready to go home?" Bill asked, and Yugi nearly jumped.

It wasn't that he hadn't know Bill was there; it was the sound of his voice. It was velvety, a shade off of sleazy. It was a far cry from the normal asshole Bill voice. Not at all like it.

Era didn't seem to notice. She nodded and finished her drink. "Okay."

A second later, Bill lifted his arm as though he were going to punch Era in the back. Yugi reacted without thinking when a strange sensation in the back of his mind screamed, _Stop him_! He shoved Bill with all his might. It was only Bill's drunkenness that made Yugi's thin weight able to push his fat body off balance. Yugi saw the silver knife as it clattered to the ground.

Bill's face was completely blank, empty of any possible emotion. His eyes were wide, and his pupils were dilated.

Tommy, Moonlit Blade's drummer, grabbed Bill's arm. Bill had just enough time to punch Tommy in the face before other patrons tackled him and a woman called the police.

Somewhere in the back of the bar, Yugi thought he saw the brunette man with ice-blue eyes smiling from the shadows. But when he looked again, the man was nowhere in sight, as if he'd never existed.

By the time the cops got there, Bill couldn't remember anything. He was mad as Hell, though, cursing Era at the top of his lungs.

Yugi turned to him when Era was talking and panicking with the police, and snapped softly, "Stop talking. Now and forever, just stop talking, Bill, no one wants to hear it!"

Bill's screams silenced in mid-curse. Eyes wide, he opened and closed his mouth, but no sound, not even a startled puff came out. Yugi turned to his mother, away from Bill, who stared at him as if he were the Devil himself. Looking back, Yugi saw Bill mouthing a single word. There was no sound to it, but the word sent shivers through Yugi's body. _Imp._

_I'm not an imp_, Yugi thought. He wrapped his arms around his mother, the shock of it all finally getting to her. Era shivered and sobbed against his shoulder. _I just didn't want Mom hearing you yell at her anymore._ He closed his eyes.

The police drove Yugi and Era back to Bill's apartment and waited while Yugi packed their clothes and stuff into plastic garbage bags. Era was on the phone, trying to find a place for them to stay. Era sighed loudly and hung up the phone. "Honey," she called. "We're going to go to Grandpa's, okay?"

"Grandpa Mouto or Grandpa Sampson?" called Yugi.

"Sugoroku."

"Did you call him?" Yugi asked, stacking his CDs into a plastic orange crate. They hadn't visited Sugoroku at his Game Shop in the six years since they had moved away from Domino. Era barely spoke to Sugoroku, his father's father, on the holidays before handing the phone over to Yugi, not able to talk to him anymore.

"Yeah, I just woke him up." Yugi couldn't remember the last time his mom sounded so tired. "It'll just be for a while. You can visit your old friends."

"Shizuka and Katsuya Jonouchi," Yugi said. He hoped that's who Era meant. He hoped his mother wasn't teasing him about all that faerie garbage again. If he had to hear one more story about Yugi and his cute imaginary faerie friends when he was little, he was going to scream and/or throw up. He closed his eyes and continued to pack up his stuff into the plastic orange crate.

"Yeah, them. Get me another cigarette, hon?" Era tossed more CDs into the crate.

Yugi was about to protest that she had promised no more that night, but after taking one look at her exhausted face, Yugi shrugged and fished a cigarette out of his back pocket and lit it with one of his matches. _What's the point? It's not like me stealing her cigarettes is going to keep her from smoking ever again_.

* * *

Me: All righty! Prologue, and we already have some issues with Yugi and his mom, Era! Era was nearly killed by Bill, her boyfriend. But who was that man who Bill was speaking with? I'm sure we all know who based on the hair and eye color!

Lucy: And what's up with Yugi and his strange abilities?

Me: And as for the name Midna in the story title, this does play a major role in the story. But you'll all have to ready on if you want to find out what the name is and how it ties in! Warning: "Midna" does not have the same meaning as "Tithe" did in Holly Black's stories. Just for those of you who have read Holly Black's stories.

Lucy: To find out more, please review nicely or not at all and we shall update! We are sort of nervous about how this fic will play out!

Me: And now we are off to update more of our stories!


	2. Chapter 1

**Title**: Midna: A Typical Faerie Tale

**Genre**: romance, drama, hurt/comfort

**Rating**: T+ for language, slight drug usage, and violence (_rating might go up_)

**Pairings**: YamiXYugi (_puzzleshipping_); BakuraXRyou (_tendershipping_); KaibaXJonouchi (_puppyshipping_); MarikXMalik (_bronzeshipping_)

**Summary**: 16-year-old Yugi Mouto lives with an alcoholic rock star mom, whose lifestyle lends itself to travel and minimal attachment. The only consistent thing in Yugi's childhood is the visitation by his faerie friends, and his ability to make strange things happen, inhuman things like making a decrepit merry-go-round horse come to life. He is a sarcastic, sometimes bitter, edgy young man with a hidden innocent side struggling to find his place in a world that offers little in return. Then one night, following a disastrous, rainy night with friends, he rescues a Faerie Knight named Yami on his way home. In this brief but pivotal moment, he tricks him into revealing his name, fully aware of the power this gives him, and then finds himself in the throes of a crush on someone he knows is not of this world. But Yugi's trouble truly begins when he discovers that he himself is not human, having been "glamoured" to hide his true, shimmering green, pixie self. He then becomes a pawn in a rival war between two distinct faeries...

Me: All right, guys! The next chapter of this fan fiction is up and running.

Lucy: So sorry it took so long, but we have finally updated it, and we hope everyone enjoys this chapter as much as we enjoyed writing it. A lot of stuff happens in this one, so we hope you are all satisfied with it!

**DISCLAIMER**: We do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Tithe or Ironside. They belong to their respective creators.

Me: We hope you all enjoy this chapter of "Midna: A Typical Faerie Tale"!

Lucy: Here we go!

_**Chapter One**_

Yugi spun around on the worn black planks of the boardwalk. The air was heavy and stank of the sea; dried mussels and the crust of salt and new strands of seaweed washed from deep on the ocean floor. Waves tossed themselves against the shore, dragging grit and sand between their nails as they were pulled back to sea. The moon was high and pale in the sky, but the sun was just starting to go down.

It was so good to finally _breathe_.

Yugi loved the scenery and the serene brutality of the ocean, loved the electric power he felt with every breath he took of the sweet, salty air. It sure beat breathing in the smell of metal and exhaust fumes every day. He spun again, dizzily, not caring if people thought he was weird because of it. He lived for weird. He was weird.

"Come on," Shizuka called.

She stepped over the overflowing leaf-choked gutter along the street parallel to the boardwalk, wobbling slightly on flat-heeled platform shoes. Her glittery makeup sparkled under the streetlights.

"You're going to fall," she snapped at Yugi.

Yugi and his mother had been staying at his grandfather's for a week already, and even though Era kept on saying they would be leaving soon, it wouldn't be a shock to Yugi if they stayed for a few years. They really had nowhere to go. Yugi was glad. He liked the Game Shop. He loved the sea being so close, and he loved being able to breathe without lurching over and hacking his brains out every few minutes.

The cheap hotels they passed were as boarded up as they'd always been. Yugi could understand why. Whenever he walked by, he could have sworn that little eyes were watching him from the distance. It was creepy, but at the same time, he loved it.

Shizuka dug through her purse and pulled out a wand of silvery lipgloss. Yugi spun up to her, his blue coat spinning behind him. His bright white sneakers struck the sand and became the color of dark ivory.

"Let's go swimming," he suggested.

He was giddy with night air, burning with excitement like the white-hot moon. Everything smelled wet and wonderful and all Yugi wanted to do was run and jump and scream and whoop and not care who or what thought he was weird because of it. He loved weird. He lived for weird. He _was_ weird!

"The water's freezing," Shizuka sighed. "Don't act weird around the guys, Yugi. You know it creeps them out."

Yugi paused and watched Shizuka with his amethyst eyes, wary as a cat. "Then how should I act?"

"I don't want you to act like anything—don't you want a boyfriend?"

Yugi rolled his eyes. Shizuka, as well as everyone, knew he was gay. They had known ever since he was little. "Screw the human boys," he said with a small laugh. "Let's go hunt us down some incubi!"

"Incubi?"

"Yeah, incubi. Male sex demons. Plural. Like octopi. And we're much more likely to find them," Yugi smiled, his voice dropping conspitirorially, "while swimming naked in the Pacific Ocean a week from Halloween than practically anywhere else I can think of."

Shizuka rolled her eyes.

Yugi spun again, laughing.

"Why are you always making stuff up? That's what I mean by weird." Shizuka was speaking loudly, but Yugi could barely hear her over the wind and the sound of his own psychotic laughter.

"C'mon, Yugi. Remember the faeries you used to tell stories about? What was his name?"

"Which one? Bakura or Ryou?"

"Exactly. You made them up," Shizuka said. "You always make things up."

Yugi stopped spinning, cocking his head to the side, fingers sliding into his pocket. "No. I never lie." Somewhere in the worn-out hotels, a series of high-pitched giggles accompanied his new string of amused laughs.

* * *

The old merry-go-round building had been semi-abandoned for years. Angelic lead faces, surrounded by rays of hair, divided the broken panes. The entire front of it was windowed, revealing the dirt floor, glass glittering against the refuse. Inside, a crude ply-wood skateboarding ramp was the only remains of an attempt to use the building comercially in the last decade.

Yugi could hear voices echoing in the still air all the way out to the street. He dropped a lit match into the gutter. It hissed and was quickly carried away, sitting on the water like a spider. Yugi hoisted himself up onto the outside ledge and swung his legs over. The window had been long gone, but his legs slid against the residue as he slid in, fraying his already tattered jeans.

Layers of paint thickly covered the once-intricate moldings inside the carousel building. The ramp in the center of the room was tagged by local spray-paint artists and covered with band stickers and ballpoint pen scrawlings.

And there were the boys.

"Yugi Mouto, you remember me, right?" Rad-Reily asked. He was tall and thin, and Yugi already didn't like him.

"I think you threw a bottle at me in sixth grade," Yugi guessed.

Rad-Reily laughed. "Right. Right. Don't tell me you're still made about that."

"Nope," he said, but his happy mood was gone, leaving him anxious and drained.

Shizuka climbed on top of the skateboard ramp to where Ryuji Otogi was sitting, a king in his red jacket and dice piercing, watching the proceedings. Handsome, with dark hair and emerald eyes. He held up a bottle of tequila in greeting. Yugi nodded at him once, but refused to acknowledge his presence with words.

Willy handed Yugi the bottle he was drinking. Yugi slapped the bottle away—a little of the alcohol splashed onto the ground.

"Bourbon," said Willy sharply, "is expensive shit."

"Then keep it away from me if you want to save money," Yugi growled, eyes flashing.

He backed off then, grumbling under his breath. Yugi could have sworn he heard the word "imp" somewhere in there, but if he did, he didn't bring it up. _Why try fighting with these idiots?_ Willy resumed trying to take large swigs of the bourbon without gagging. Even hunched over, he was a huge guy. The brown of the top of his head gleamed, and Yugi could see where he must have nicked his chin shaving this morning.

"I brought you some candy," Shizuka said to Otogi. She had candy corn and caramels.

"I brought you some candy," Rad-Reily mocked in a high, squeaky voice, jumping up on the ramp. "Give it here," he said.

Yugi walked around the round room. It was magnificent, old and decayed and fine. The slow burn of bourbon in the background was perfect for this place, the sort of thing a man in a summer suit who always wore a hat might drink.

"What flavor of Asian are you?" Willy asked. He had produced a joint and was smoking it. The thick, sweet smell almost choked him.

He looked around the room again and tried to ignore him.

"Yugi! Do you hear me?"

"Yes, yes. I'm half Japanese." Yugi touched his hair—shaped like a star, with bangs as blond as his mother's. It was the multi-colored hair—_Natural_, Yugi liked to add, just to see peoples' reactions—that always made people stare when he passed.

"Man, you ever see the cartoons there? They have like them little, little girls with these pigtails and shit in these short school uniforms. Oh, oh—and then there's this really strange show. _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ I think it's called. It's about card games or something. Hey, Yugi, you share the main character's name! You ever play that card game before?"

"Shut up, dickhead," Shizuka called, laughing. "Yugi's not ten years old." Otogi looped one of his fingers through the belt-rings of Shizuka's jeans and pulled her over to kiss her.

"Yeah, well, damn," Willy laughed. "Won't you say, 'It's time to duel!', just for a second?"

Yugi shook his head. No. He wasn't going to amuse them.

Willy and Rad-Reily started to play Hacky Sack with an empty beer bottle. It didn't break as they kicked it boot to boot, but it made a hollow sound. Yugi ignored them, but his head was buzzing pleasantly, humming in time with imagined merry-go-round music. He moved farther back into the dim room, to where old placards announced popcorn and peanuts for five cents apiece.

Against the far wall was a black, weathered door. It opened jerkily when she pushed it. Moonlight from the windows in the main room revealed only an office with an old desk and a corkboard with yellowed menus still pinned to it. He stepped inside, even though the light switch didn't work. Feeling in the backness, he found a knob. This door led to a stairwell with only a little light drifting down from the top. He felt his way up the stairs. Dust covered the palms of his hands as he slid them along the railings. He sneezed loudly, then sneezed again.

At the top of was a small window lit brightly by the murderess moon, ripe and huge in the sky. Interesting boxes were stacked in the corners.

Then his eyes fell on on the horse, and he forgot all the rest.

He was magnificent—gleaming, pearl white and covered with tiny pieces of glued-down mirror. His face was painted with red and purple and gold, and he even had a bar of white painted teeth and a painted pink tongue with enough space to tuck a sugar cube. It was obvious why he had been left behind—his legs on all four sides and part of his tail had been shattered. Splinters hung down where his legs used to be.

_Ryuzaki would have loved this. Ryou and Bakura would have loved this_. Yugi had thought that many times since she had left Domino, six years past. _My "imaginary friends" would have loved this_. He'd thought it the first time that he'd seen the city, lit up like never-ending Christmas. But they never came when she was in the city. And now he was sixteen and felt like he had no imagination left.

He tried to set the horse up as if he were standing on his ruined stumps. It wobbled unsteadily but didn't fall. Yugi pulled off his coat and dropped it on the dusty floor. He swung one leg over the beast and dropped onto its saddle, using his feet to keep it from falling. He ran his hand down its mane, which was carved in golden ringlets. He touched the glossy, painted black eyes and the chipped ears—he felt drunk on its unnatural beauty.

The white horse rose on unsteady legs in his mind. The long curls of the gold mane were cool in his hands, and the great bulk of the animal was real and warm beneath him. He wove his hands through the mane and gripped hard, feeling the prickling of his skin. The horse whinned softly underneath him, ready to leap out into the cold, black water. Yugi threw back his head.

"Yugi?" A soft voice snapped him out of his daydream. Otogi was standing near the stairs, regarding him blankly. For a moment though, Yugi was still fierce. Then he felt his cheeks burning.

Caught in the half-light, he could see him better than he had downstairs. A earring in the shape of a die hung from his ear. His long, ebony hair was mussed and tied back. Under the red jacket, his too-tight black shirt showed the easy muscles of someone who was born with them.

He moved toward Yugi, reaching his hand out then looking at it oddly, as if he didn't remember deciding to do that. Indtead he petted the head of the horse, slowly, hypnotically.

"I saw you," he said. "I saw what you did."

"Where's Shizuka?" Yugi wasn't sure what Otogi meant. He would have thought Otogi was just teasing, except for his serious look and his slow way of speaking.

He was stroking the animal's mane now. "She was worried about you." His hand frightened Yugi, despite himself. It seemed like he was tangling it in the imaginary hair. "How did you make it do that?"

"Do what?" he was genuinely afraid now, afraid and flattered both. There was no mocking or teasing on Otogi's face. He was watching Yugi so intensely that he seemed drained of all emotion.

"I saw it stand up." His voice was so low that Yugi could almost pretend he hadn't heard right. Otogi's voice dropped to Yugi's thigh and slid toward the spot between his legs. Even though he had seen the slow progression of his hand, the touch startled him. Yugi was paralyzed for only a moment before he sprang up, letting the horse fall as he did. It crashed down, knocking one of the boxes over. Feathers and packing peanuts poured over him and Otogi and the dusty boxes like a tidal wave.

Otogi grabbed for him before Yugi could think, his hand catching hold of the neck of his black shirt. Yugi stepped back, off-balance, and fell, his shirt ripping nearly in half even as Otogi let him go.

Shoes pounded up the stairs.

"What the fuck?" Willy was at the top of the stairwell with Rad-Reily, trying to shove his way in for a look.

Otogi shook his head and looked around numbly while Yugi scrambled for his coat.

The boys moved out of the way, and Shizuka was there, too, staring. "What happened?" she asked, looking between them in confusion. Yugi pushed past her, shoving his hand through an armhole of the coat as he threw it over his back. "Yugi!" she called after him.

Yugi ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time in the unebbing blackness. There was nothing he could say that would explain what happened.

He could hear Shizuka shouting, "What did you do to him, Otogi? What the fuck did you do to Yugi?"

Yugi ran across the carousel hall and swung his leg over the sill. The glass he had carefully avoided earlier slashed a thin line on the outside of his thigh as he dropped among the sandy soil and weeds. The cold, ocean air of Domino felt good against his burning face and stinging eyes.

* * *

Katsuya Jonouchi picked up the new box of computer stuff and hauled it into his bedroom to drop next to the others. Every time his mom returned from the flea market, she seemed to have some kind of new contraption for him to mess around with. He didn't care. He knew his mother was just trying to make him feel included—ever since his dad's death by alcohol abuse, she'd been trying to keep him from ever touching the stuff. Jonouchi never cared for his father. _Abusive son of a bitch_. He always tried to ignore his dad when he was alive, and the son of a bitch was somewhat tolerable when he was hungover and not beating the shit out of him.

He dropped the boxes and sighed loudly, then picked up his leather jacket with the flaming K on the back and made for the door.

"Can you use that stuff, sweetie?" His mother was in Shizuka's room, folding a new pair of second-hand jeans. She held up a T-shirt with a rhinestone bird on it. "You think your sister will like it?"

"Thanks, Mom," he said as calmly as he dared. "I got to go to work." He walked past his stepfather, who was stooped over getting a beer from the case under the kitchen table. The white cat was waddling along the countertop, its belly dragging with another pregnancy, screaming for canned food or water or something. Jonouchi petted her head gently, but before it began rubbing his hand back, he opened the screen door and went into the lot.

The cool October air was a relief from the recirculated cigarette smoke.

Jonouchi loved his car. It was a primer-colored Chevy blooming with rust spots and an inner lining that hung like baggy skin from the roof. He knew what he looked like. Beaky. Skinny and tall with frizzy hair and pale skin. He didn't live up to his name. Katusya. Victorious. He was anything but. An ex-gang member. An ex-con. Been to jail more times than any other kid his age. Been in more fights than a professional wrestler, all of which determined life or death. But not in his car. In his car, no one knew who he was. No one could see in, and no one knew him as "that kid" the neighbors referred to him as: the gang member, the poor boy whose father died, the one his mother didn't really want to take in again but did, the son no one wanted to have. _At least I'm not a drug addict like Mrs. Rei's kid_, he thought every time he saw the old woman down the street glaring at him out her window.

Ever day for the last three weeks he had left a little earlier for work. He would go to the convenience store and buy some food. Then he would drive around, cruise past all the rustic joints, imagining he had a semiautomatic rifle in the car and counting how many he could have gotten. "Pow," he'd say, softly, to rolled-up windows as a druggy with bad hair ran up to a group of giggling girls behind the window of a red truck. "Pow, and pow."

Tonight, he bought a cup of coffee and a package of red licorice. He lingered over a paperback with a picture of a metallic dragon glossed over the front, reading the first few sentences to see if anything caught his interest. The game was becoming boring. Worst of all, it was become routine. Nearly a week before Halloween, this was the point when a real maniac would grab a gun and start shooting.

He took a sip of his coffee and almost spat it out. Too sweet. He sipped at it some more, steeling himself for the taste. Gross.

Jonouchi got out of his car and chucked the full coffee into the parking lot. It spilled over the asphalt—a waste of $1.09, but he didn't care. He went inside and poured himself another cup. From behind the counter, a matronly woman with frizzy hair looked him over and pointed to his black leather jacket. "Are you supposed to be a gang member?"

"Not anymore, lady," Jonouchi said, dropping a dollar and nine pennies on the counter. "Not anymore."

* * *

Me: Oh no! Yugi's got some funky stuff going on in this chapter, and we finally get to meet Jonouchi, who plays the role of Corny from Tithe and Ironside.

Lucy: Unfortunately, the one person we want to meet hasn't appeared in this chapter. But good news: he's going to appear in the next chapter, so I hope you're all happy when he finally does show up in the story!

Me: Yami is arriving next chapter!

Lucy: Please review, and we shall update as soon as we are able! Thank you all for reading.


	3. Chapter 2

**Title**: Midna: A Typical Faerie Tale

**Genre**: romance, drama, hurt/comfort

**Rating**: T+ for language, slight drug usage, and violence (_rating might go up_)

**Pairings**: YamiXYugi (_puzzleshipping_); BakuraXRyou (_tendershipping_); KaibaXJonouchi (_puppyshipping_); MarikXMalik (_bronzeshipping_)

**Summary**: 16-year-old Yugi Mouto lives with an alcoholic rock star mom, whose lifestyle lends itself to travel and minimal attachment. The only consistent thing in Yugi's childhood is the visitation by his faerie friends, and his ability to make strange things happen, inhuman things like making a decrepit merry-go-round horse come to life. He is a sarcastic, sometimes bitter, edgy young man with a hidden innocent side struggling to find his place in a world that offers little in return. Then one night, following a disastrous, rainy night with friends, he rescues a Faerie Knight named Yami on his way home. In this brief but pivotal moment, he tricks him into revealing his name, fully aware of the power this gives him, and then finds himself in the throes of a crush on someone he knows is not of this world. But Yugi's trouble truly begins when he discovers that he himself is not human, having been "glamoured" to hide his true, shimmering green, pixie self. He then becomes a pawn in a rival war between two distinct faeries...

Me: Hello, all! Next chapter is rocking and a-wheeling!

Lucy: We are so proud and pleased of all readers who have enjoyed this story so far, and we pray that you all stick with this one until the end. We're happy with it, and we hope everyone is happy with the way it turns out!

**DISCLAIMER**: We do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Tithe or Ironside. They belong to their respective creators.

Me: We hope everyone enjoys this chapter, because someone very special makes his first appearance in this chapter, and I just know everyone is going to love it! Please enjoy this chapter, all, and we shall update soon!

_**Chapter Two**_

The wind whipped tiny pebbles of rain against Yugi's face. The droplets froze his hands, making him shiver as they slid down his wet hair and under the collar of his coat. He walked, head down, kicking at the scattered trash that had eddied up on the grassy shores along the highway. A flattened soda can skittered into a sodden chrysanthemum-covered foam heart, staked there to mark the site of a car crash. There were no houses on this side of the road—just a long stretch of wet woods leading up to the gas station. He was well over halfway home by now.

Cars hissed over the wet asphalt. The sound was comforting, like a long sigh.

_I saw you. I saw what you did_.

Awfulness twisted in his gut, awfulness and anger. He wanted to smash something, hit someone.

How could he have done anything? When he tried to make a magazine page turn on its own or a penny land on heads, it never worked. So how could have made Otogi see a broken-legged carousel horse stand up and move?

Never mind that he might as well assume that Bakura and Ryou and Ryuzaki _had_ been nothing more than imaginary. He'd been home for over two weeks, and there was no sign of them, no matter how many times he had called to them, no matter how many bowls of milk-and-honey he left out, no matter how many times he went down to the old creek where he first met them.

He took a deep breath, snorting rain up his nose. It reminded him of crying.

The trees seemed like lead panels missing the stained glass to fit between their branches. He knew what his grandpa was going to say when he got back, stinking of smoke with a torn shirt.

The same things Shizuka would say tomorrow. There was no way to explain what had happened without admitting to something. Otogi's hand on his leg was what Shizuka might really care about—that, and the fact that Yugi had let it rest there, even if only for a moment of stunned horror. And he could imagine what Otogi was saying—angry and flushed and drunk—but even a badly anaged lie would be better than the truth.

_I saw it stand up_.

But even if he didn't go that far, who would believe that he was trying to grab Yugi between the legs n purpose, but ripped his shirt by accident? No, Otogi must have told a totally different story. So what was Yugi supposed to say to Shizuka when she asked him what happened? She probably already thought he was making things up, so the chances of her believing him were slim to none.

He could still feel the heat of Otogi's hand, a stroke of hated fire along his thigh in contrast to his otherwise rain-soaked skin.

Another gust of wind stung his cheeks, this one bringing a shout from within the direction of the woods. The noise was brief, but eloquent with pain. Yugi stopped abruptly. There was no sound except the rain, hissing like radio static.

Then, just as a truck sped past, kicking up a cloud of drizzle, he heard another sound. Softer, this one, maybe a moan bitten off at the end. It was just inside the copse of trees.

_Go home. Ignore it. Go home_. His body wouldn't listen. Yugi moved down the slight slope, off the short grass and into the woods. He ducked under the dripping branches of an elm, stepping on tufts of short ferns and looping briars. Weeds brushed across his calves, leaving strokes of rain on his jeans. The storm lit the woods and sky with silver. An earthy, sweet odor of rot bloomed where he disturbed the carpet of leaves.

There was no one there.

He half turned toward the highway. He could still see the road from where he was standing._ What am I doing?_ The sound must have carried from the houses beyond the thin river that ran beyond the back of the woods. No one else would be dumb enough to go trooping through the wet, dripping woods in the middle of the night.

Yugi walked back up to the road, picking his way through the spots that seemed somewhat drier than all the others. Burrs had collected along his sneakers and jeans, and he bent down to pick them off one by one.

"Stay where you are, imp." He jumped at the voice. It was a rich baritone, each word pronounced precisely.

A man was sprawled in the mud only a few steps from him, clutching a curved sword in one hand. It shone like a sliver of moonlight in the hazy dark. Star-shaped dark hair—_So much like mine_, Yugi thought in stunned surprise—plastered wetly to his neck, framed a face that was long and full of sharp, inhumanly beautiful angles. Rivulets of rain ran over the jointed black armor he wore, which burned as bright as hot coals when he shifted. His other hand was at his heart, clutching a branch that jutted from his chest. The rain there was tinted scarlet with blood, thick and reeking of something sweet and very, very not human.

"Was it you, imp child?" He was breathing raggedly.

Yugi wasn't sure what he meant, but he shook his head. He didn't look much older than he was—certainly not old enough to refer to him as "child".

"So you haven't come to finish me off?"

He shook his head again. The man was long-limbed—he would be tall if he were standing. Taller than most people, taller than any faerie he'd ever seen—still, Yugi had no doubt what he was, if for no other reason than the pointed tops of his ears knifing through his wet hair—and that he was beautiful in a way that made Yugi's breath catch.

The faerie licked his lips. There was blood on them. "Pity," he said quietly.

Yugi took a step toward him, and he twisted into a defensive crouch. Wounded as he was, he could move swiftly. Silver-blond bangs fell aforward across his face, but his eyes, shining like mercury, studied Yugi intently.

"You're a faerie, aren't you?" Yugi said soothingly, holding his hands where the man could see them. He had heard stories of the court fey—the Gentry—from Ryou, but he had never seen one in person. It seemed very likely that that's what this man was.

He stayed still, and Yugi took another half step toward him, holding out one hand to coax him as if he were some dangerous animal. "Let me help you."

The man's body was trembling with concentration. His eyes never flickered from Yugi's face. He held the hilt of the sword in a white-knuckled grip. "You're not an imp, are you, child?" His voice was soft, full of distrust. "You're human."

Yugi did not dare take another step. "You're going to bleed to death."

They stayed like that a few more minutes before the faerie slumped down to one knee in the mud. He bent forward, fingers clutching the leaves, and spat red. The wet lashes over his half-closed eyes were as black as a raven's feathers.

Yugi took two steps and knelt down to him, bracing himself on shaking hands. This close, he could see that the armor was stiff leather sculpted to look like feathers.

"I cannot draw the arrow myself," the faerie said softly. "There are waiting for me to bleed a little more before they come."

"Who is waiting?" It was hard to understand that someone had shot him with a tree branch, but that seemed to be what he was saying.

"The imps here. Which I believe you were. Your beauty is stunning, for a human. Misleading." His eyes narrowed, and he shook his head slowly. "If you wish to help me, draw the arrow out. If not, then push it in as deep as you can and hope that it kills me."

"It will bleed more," Yugi said.

He laughed at that, a bitter sound. "Either way, no doubt."

Yugi could see the despair in his face. He obviously believed that Yugi was a part of some plan to kill him. Still, he slid his body back until he could lean against the trunk of an oak. He was braced, waiting to see what Yugi would do.

Yugi thought of the faeries he had known when he was a child—impish, quick little things—no mention of wars or magical arrows or enemies, certainly no lies, no deception. The man bleeding in the wet dirt beside him proved to him just how wrong his preceptions of _Faery_ had been. His fingers flinched away from the wound on the faerie's chest. His lungs turned to ice as he looked at the bloody wound, and his head swam. "I can't do this..."

The faerie's voice stayed soft. "What do they call you, child?"

"Yugi," he answered. There was a silence for a moment as he noticed the cold cloud his breath made.

"I'm called Yami." Faeries didn't give their names easily, even part of their names, although Yugi had no idea why. He was trying to show Yugi that he trusted him, maybe trying to make up for the crude assumptions he had made about him being an imp before. "Give me your hand, Yugi."

He let Yam take his hand in his and guide it to the branch. His hand closed over Yugi's, both of them chilled and wet, his fingers inhumanly long and scratched. "Just close your hand and let me pull," Yami said softly. "You don't even have to look. As long as I'm not touching it, I may be able to draw it out."

That shamed him. Yugi had told him that he wanted to help him—he was in a whole lot of pain, and now was no time to be squeamish. "I'll do it," he whispered.

Yami let go of his hand, and Yugi gave a sharp tug. Although his face contorted in pain, it only moved a little bit.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly.

Were there really other faerie folk in the trees, waiting for him to be weak enough to defeat? Yugi thought that if so, now was a great time for them to come down and have a go at it. He wouldn't be able to fight back, and Yugi was certainly no sort of fighter.

"It's all right," Yami said through grit-teeth. "Again, Yugi."

He took note of the angle of the armor this time, changing his position so the branch couldn't catch on one of the plates. He raised himself on one knee, braced, and then stood, pulling upward as hard as he was able.

Yami gave a harsh cry as the branch slid free of his chest, its iron tip black with blood. His fingers touched the wound and he raised them, slick with blood, as if suddenly disbelieving that he had been shot.

"Very brave," he said, touching his wet fingers to Yugi's leg.

Yugi threw the stick away from him. He was shuddered, and he could taste something metallic in his mouth. "We have to stop the bleeding." He felt Yami's strange fingers on his leg still, and he tried to quell the prickly feeling of joy creeping through him. "How does your armor come off?"

He seemed not to understand Yugi at first. Yami just looked at him with a kind of incredulity. Then he leaned forward with a groan. "Straps," he managed.

A sudden wind shook the branches above, raining an extra shower of heavy droplets down on them, and Yugi wondered again about faeries in the trees, watching them. His fingers fumbled in his haste. If those faeries were still afraid of Yami, they didn't have to worry much longer—Yugi was betting that they only had a few more minutes before he passed out entirely.

To get off his breastplate, Yugi not only had to detach it from the backplate at his shoulders and sides—there were also straps that connected it to the shoulderplates and the legplates. Finally, Yugi managed to peel it off Yami's chest. Underneath, the bare skin was mottled with crimson blood.

Yami tipped back his head and closed his eyes. "Let the rain clean it."

Yugi pulled off his coat and hung it on one of the branches of the tree. His shirt was ripped already, he reminded himself as he took it off. He tore it into long strips and began winding them around Yami's chest and arms. He opened his eyes when Yugi touched him. His eyes narrowed, the widened. They were mesmerizing—as bright and beautiful as cut rubies, filled with other flecks of multi-colored lights and glassy shapes.

He straightened up, horrified. "I didn't even hear you rip the cloth."

"You have to try and stay awake." Yugi's cheeks felt so warm that the cold rain actually felt good against them. "Is there somewhere you can go?"

He shook his head. Fumbling near him, he picked up a leaf and wiped it against the underside of the leather breastplate. It came away shining red. "Drop this in the stream. I—there is a kelpie there—it is no sure thing that I will be able to control her in this weather, but it is something."

Yugi nodded quickly, although he had no idea what a kelpie was, and made to take the leaf.

Yami didn't let go immediately. "I am forever in your debt. I mislike not knowing how I may repay you for securing my life."

"I have questions."

He let him take the leaf. "Then I shall answer three, as full and well as is in my power."

"Promise?"

Then Yami did something surprising and unexepected—he pulled Yugi forward and kissed him briefly on the lips. It was a light touch, nothing much, but it nearly stopped Yugi's heart. When he drew back, his eyes were filled with a mixture of emotions Yugi couldn't identify. "I promise. Faeries cannot lie, whereas humans may."

Yugi nodded slowly.

"When you drop the leaf in the water, say Yami of the Unseelie Court asks for you aid."

"Say it to what?"

"Just say it as loud as you can."

He nodded again and ran in the direction of the water. The steep bank of the stream was choked with vegetation and broken glass. Roots, swept bare of the mud that should have surrounded them, sat above the bank like overturned baskets or ran along the ground like the pale arms of half-buried corpses. Yugi forbade himself to think about something like that again.

He squatted down and set the leaf, blood side down, into the water. It floated there, spinning a little. He wondered if it was too close to the bank and tried to blow it out further. "Yami of the Unseelie Court asks for you aid," he said, hoping he had gotten it right. Nothing happened at first. He said it again louder, feeling foolish and frightened at the same time. "Yami of the Unseelie Court seeks your aid." When nothing happened a third time, Yugi began to feel desperate. He cried as loudly as his tiny lungs would allow him to yell, "Please! Yami of the Unseelie Court needs your help!"

A frog surfaced and began to swim in his direction. Would that have something to do with a kelpie? What kind of help were they supposed to get from a shallow, polluted stream?

But then he saw that he had been mistaken. What he had taken for the eyes of a frog were actually hollow pits that quivered as something swam through the water toward him. He wanted to run, but a sense of fascination combined with obligation rooted him to the spot. Hollow pits formed into flaring nostrils on the snout of a black horse that rose from the black water as if created from it. Moss and mud slid from its dripping flanks as the thing turned its head to regard Yugi with ominously white eyes.

He couldn't move. How many minutes passed as he started at the mottled gray flanks, smooth as sealskin, and stared at the impossible glow of its eyes? The creature inclined its neck.

Yugi took a half step backward and tried to speak. No words came out.

The horse-thing snuffled closer to him, its hooves sinking in the mud, snapping twigs. It smelled of brackish water. He took another careful step backward and stumbled.

He had to say something. "This way," he managed, pointing through the trees. "He's this way."

The horse moved in the direction he pointed, speeding up to a trot, and Yugi was left to follow it, nearly shaking in relief. When he got to the clearing, Yami was already straddling the creature's back. His breastplate had been haphazardly strapped on. Yugi let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Yami saw him emergy from under the canopy of branches and smiled. His eyes seemed darker in the moonlight. "Were I you, I would stay clear of the Folk in the future. We are a capricious people, with little regard for mortals."

He looked at Yami again. There were scratches on his armor that he didn't remember. Could he have been attacked? He could barely lift his head before—it was impossible to believe that he could have fought someone. "Did something happen?"

His smile deepened, wiping the weariness from his face. His eyes glittered muderously bright. "Don't waste your questions." The he leaned down on the horse's back and pressed his lips to Yugi's rain-wet forehead and whispered, "You'll see me again." Then the horse rode, moving like no living thing, darting between trees with unearthy speed and grace. Leaves flurried from the kicks of its hooves. Moonlight glowed on its black flanks.

Before Yugi could think, he was alone in the woods. Alone and shivering and proud of himself. He moved to retrieve his coat, and a glimmer of light caught his attention.

The arrow.

He knelt and picked up the branch with its iron tip. His finger ran up the rough bark and touched the too-warm metal.

A shudder went through him, and he dropped it back in the mud. The woods were suddenly menacing, and he walked as quickly as he could back toward the road. If ge started running, he didnt think he'd ever be able to stop.

* * *

Yugi dug his feet into the muddy slope that marked the edge of his grandpa's lawn and heaved himself up. He slid past the overflowing trash can, the broken down Honda, the rusted hinges on the broken sign leading to the game shop entrance. The words KAME flickered in colorful lights at the roof of the shop.

All the lights in the house seemed to be on, highlighting the curtains. Blue lights flickered in the living room where the TV was.

Yugi opened the back door and walked into the kitchen. Pots and pans, crusted with food, were piled in the sink. He was supposed to have washed them. Instead, he took a bowl out of the cupboard, filled it with milk, then poured a drizzle of honey on top. _It will have to do_, he thought as he carefully opened the door and set it on the step—after all, the only things likely to come for it anymore were the alley and neighborhood cats.

Yugi crept into the living room.

On the other side of the staircase, Era was sitting in front of the television, eating one of the minature Snickers Grandpa had bought for the trick-or-treaters.

"Leave me the fuck alone, Sugoroku," she muttered to the drink in front of her.

"You think I don't know anything? You're the smart one, right?" Yugi's grandpa said in that too-sweet voice that scared Yugi so much. He was in front of her, his hair frizzier than usual. "If you're so smart, then how come you're all alone? How come all those men just use you and leave you? How come the only one to take care of you seems to be your old, stupid father-in-law?"

"I heard you the first million fucking times you said it."

"Well, you're going to hear it again, Era," growled Grandpa. "Where is your son tonight? It's almost one in the morning! Do you even care that he's walking around there this late, probably going to turn into a cokehead just like that son of a bitch you dated before all this, who tried to kill you—"

"Do not start on my Yugi!" Era said with surprising vehemence. "He's just fine! You leave him out of this!"

"Well forgive me for caring about my grandson!"

"Of course I care!"

Yugi bent his head down and tried to walk up the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. He caught his own reflection in the hallway mirror, strange lines of dirt streaked across his cheeks and under his eyes, running in crusted lines that appeared to be made with tears. The red lines on his lips, he realized, were made from the traces of blood on Yami's lips when he kissed him. They were smudged lines, as if he had wiped at them. He didn't remember.

Yugi took a furtive look into the living room. His mother caught his glance, nodded slowly, and motioned him up the stairs with a quick gesture.

"While Yugi's in this house, he's going to live by the same rules he did as a child. I don't care that he's spent the last six years in a rat-infested apartment with whatever hoodlum you took up with. From now on, that boy's not going to suffer anymore because your your dumb choices!"

Yugi crept the rest of the way up the stairs and into his room. He closed the door as quietly as he could.

The tiny white dresser and bed seemed to belong to someone else. His rats, Magician and Gaea, rustled in their fish tank on top of the old toy box.

Yugi stripped off his clothes and, not caring about the wet or the mud or anything, climbed into the small bed, wrapped a blanket around himself, and folded his legs so that he fit. He knew what obsession was like—he saw how his mother craved fame, pined over men who trated her like shit. He didn't want to want someone or something he could never have, could never achieve.

But just for tonight, he allowed himself to think of Yami, of the formal way he had spoken to him, so unlike anyone else. He let himself think of the flashing eyes and the smile. And he let himself think of the kiss, Yami's assurance that they would meet again.

Yugi slid down into sleep like water closing over his head.

* * *

Me: Hello all! I hope you enjoyed that. Now, I know Kaye and Roiben—the two who Yami and Yugi take place on in this fic—didn't kiss when they first met, but I wanted to give in to the fanservice just a little, so I had Yugi and Yami kiss in this chapter.

Lucy: We hope the fans aren't displeased with us for doing that, but we don't think they will be!

Me: Please review, and we shall update as soon as we are able!


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